


Visionary

by marginaliana



Category: The Grand Tour (TV) RPF
Genre: Gen, If You Squint - Freeform, TGS 1000 words challenge, as per usual, could be vaguely slashy, fairly soon post-fracas, mostly just emotional constipation, telepathy sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-26 18:30:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10792305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marginaliana/pseuds/marginaliana
Summary: James is just about to sigh and push his chair back and tell them he's done for the day when the air begins to shimmer.





	Visionary

The four of them have progressed from sitting around in Jeremy's flat with the shades drawn to sitting around in a cafe courtyard – James ought to be enjoying the fresh air and the wider drink selection, but all he can think about is how alone he feels.

It isn't that they don't talk. They've talked endlessly for the last few weeks, from what they are going to do (new show), who they are going to do it with (Amazon), and, now, how they're actually going to do it (yet to be determined). They've started on the long list with plans to create a short list later, delineating the necessary and the indulgent. It's not _so_ different than before.

But… James can't put moods to faces anymore, can't grasp the shape of the conversation. Jeremy talks but doesn't mean anything he says; Richard crosses his arms and comments only in single words; Andy sounds like he's trying to keep everyone's feet on the ground but looks unhappy whenever anyone gives in.

James has no idea if it's just the pressure they're under or if it's his own emotional exhaustion. Either way, the friends he's known for so long now seem like strangers.

He's just about to sigh and push his chair back and tell them he's done for the day when the air begins to shimmer. 

He chalks it up to sun at first – too bright after days inside – or perhaps to the beer. But then it becomes a shape, formed in motes of sunlight, colors, movement. Slowly enough that he can't identify the moment it solidifies, but then it's there, inescapable. Something… other. 

He turns to look at Richard, a word of inquiry on his lips that dies almost immediately. The air around him is all colors, swirls of paint that circle his face and arms and chest. Glowing, dappling, mixing improbably from red and blue into green. A blue and yellow splotch above Richard's left temple – James realizes after a moment that it's an abstract version of the Amazon logo.

Andy clears his throat and James drags his gaze over to discover that he's got it too, whatever it is. Not paint like Richard but pinpoints of light, gleaming brightly even against the backdrop of the afternoon sun. As James stares they curl in meandering paths, wink out and flicker into view. Not stars – but synapses perhaps. A neural network.

He turns his gaze to Jeremy then – because how could he not? Jeremy isn't looking back, is staring instead off towards the horizon. Wreathed around his head is a vast Rube Goldberg machine filled with marbles. 

There are hundreds, _thousands_ of pieces to it, spiraling ramps and switches and tiny stairways downwards, a twirling fan, a section with a long chain, motor-driven, carrying marbles back up to begin their journey over again in a new path. If he could listen to it, James is sure there would be an equivalent cacophony of sound: the stairs a xylophone and the fan a metronome, the clink of the chain and the tock-tock-tock of each marble hitting the lip of a ramp and cresting over into the slide. It's an absolutely gorgeous machine, and it's Jeremy all over.

With all of this laid out in front of him, then, James can suddenly see what's behind it. Jeremy's machinery is wobbling at the edges, obviously held together with little more than spit and hope; it's clear that he's afraid the only thing keeping him going is his own momentum, that if he stops for even a moment he'll never be able to get going again. On the other side of the table, Richard's paint is drawing an image of himself over his real face – one with blander features and brighter teeth. It's Richard as housewives' fantasy, stripped down to his pretty face and nothing of substance behind. In the middle, Andy's given up on conversation entirely but his lights are still moving, curling outwards only to be hauled back on invisible strings, as if he wants to make a connection but thinks it isn't welcome.

James wonders what would be around his own head, if he could look. Gears, musical notes, perhaps. It doesn't really matter because he knows his own fears already – that they'll want him to stay Captain Slow, that he himself will want it just because it's familiar. That they'll fight or, worse, pointedly not fight. That without the limits of the BBC they'll lose something indefinable. 

But they don't have to sit here secretly stewing about all this stuff. They don't have to do this alone – in fact, it will be infinitely better if they don't.

James sits back in his chair so that he can see all three of them at once. "Oi, three stooges. Listen up." It's enough to make them sit up a little straighter, turning turn to look at him. Jeremy's marbles hiccup in their paths; Andy's lights flicker. Richard's paint starts making a drawing of a cock and balls which probably means he's annoyed, but James will take whatever opening he can get. "You're obviously in need of a pep talk, so I suppose I'd better give it a shot," he says. "This thing we're doing – it's going to be good. So throw out all your preconceived bollocks and stop brooding and let's get _on_ with it."

"James—" Andy sounds weary.

"D'you think we're not bloody trying?" Richard says. The painted cock is being punched in the… is being punched.

"Try harder," James says. "Look, it's us. Ergo, staggering brilliance."

Andy cracks a reluctant smile at that, but Jeremy just looks James in the eye and says, unexpectedly serious, "How can you be sure?" One of the marbles at the top of his machine begins to swirl, building momentum.

"I saw it in a vision," James drawls – there's a beat, and then as all three of them burst into laughter the marble goes flying and the images around them shimmer into mist and disappear.


End file.
